Metallica Rock Out With 85-Year-Old Fan in Tampa

The adage "If it's too loud, you're too old" doesn't apply to 85-year-old Margaret Priebe, a Florida resident who just this weekend embarked with her son to see Metallica's World Magnetic tour stop in Tampa. Priebe's story became Internet lore in the weeks leading up to the show: According to the St. Petersburg Times, Priebe was first introduced to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame metal band nine years ago when she heard a song off their orchestral S&M album on the radio.

Check out our report from World Magnetic's leg launch in Nashville.

While most senior citizens would've quickly fled to talk radio, Priebe fell in love with what she heard. Last year, while battling cancer, Priebe stocked her iPod full of Metallica and Ozzy Osbourne to help her through her recovery. The story of the head-banging octogenarian eventually made its way to Metallica themselves, as the band welcomed Priebe backstage to meet them prior to their Tampa concert.

Metallica onstage and off: three decades of metal mayhem.

Blabbermouth has photos of Priebe's encounter with Metallica backstage, and all four members of the band posed for pictures with their oldest fan. James Hetfield even made it a point to dedicate the song "Nothing Else Matters" to Priebe during the concert. In one of the strangest compliments Lars Ulrich has probably ever heard, Priebe told the drummer that during her restless nights while recovering from cancer, she'd put on her iPod and Metallica helped "put me to sleep," the St. Pete Times writes.

"They were just like what I'd thought they'd be — very nice," Priebe said after meeting the band. "I like Metallica, there's nothing wrong with them. People think I'm weird. But I'm sorry, I like it loud."

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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